Exploring Group Social Mobility Dynamics through Gender and Ethnicity in the UK

Stratification research in the UK has consistently demonstrated that minorities have experienced notable improvements in their socioeconomic status in recent years. This is evidenced by advancements in occupational attainment (Iganski & Payne, 1996) as well as educational achievements (Li & Heath, 2016). Overall, the newer and younger generations of ethnic minorities in the UK are becoming increasingly more ‘fluid’ compared to their first generation of migrant arrivals (see Li & Heath, 2016; Li, 2018; Platt, 2005, 2007).

This aligns very well with the Melting Pot thesis proposed by Hirschman (1983), predicting that socioeconomic convergence among ethnic minorities and migrants will ensue within their own lifetime or with their subsequent generations. But reviewing specifically income mobility, authors usually warn about life-cycle biases (Hills, 2004), nonetheless, the question still lingers on whether income trajectories for minorities are stable across all groups in society. Thus, the novelty of this research is that the results explore life course income trajectories of cultural minorities and women minorities in the UK, by extending the literature on ‘ethnic penalties’ in the labor market (Carmichael & Woods, 2000; Li & Heath, 2018; Longhi, 2018; Zuccotti, 2015), the research question delves into discovering if inequalities stemming from ethnic ascription are either persisting or exacerbating with the coming of age.

Another innovation introduced by the study is using the Harmonized British Household Panel Survey-Understanding Society (BHPS-UKHLS), which offers up to 28 waves of repeated measures. Allowing for more robust and comprehensive longitudinal analyses compared to those employed in previous research. In addition, estimations were carried out using multilevel growth models. Results suggest that there are cumulative disadvantages related to the intersectionality of gender and ethnicity, but that only applies to certain groups and their specific life course trajectories, particularly for women of South Asian backgrounds.